Consumer group suggests Google should be fined $3 billion.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—In the US District Court for Northern California this morning, federal Judge Susan Illston heard arguments from Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit consumer group which filed an amicus brief questioning the FTC’s recent settlement with Google over cookies implanted on Safari browsers without consumers’ knowledge. In August, the Commission settled with Google for $22.5 million—the largest FTC settlement for any company so far. But Consumer Watchdog says that settlement wasn’t enough, and Google must admit guilt and be ordered to expunge the data it collected from Safari users during the period in question.

Update: Later this afternoon, Judge Susan Illston approved the $22.5 million settlement without conditions, calling it "fair, adequate and reasonable," according to the Mercury News.

In a memorandum posted prior to the hearing this morning, Consumer Watchdog suggested that a suitable penalty for Google’s improper tracking would be an astronomical $3 billion. "An independent analyst, using the most conservative assumptions possible, estimated the statutory penalty at $8 billion," the memorandum also read. The absurdly high numbers were not mentioned at all in today’s hearing.

The hearing was brief and the judge seemed skeptical toward Consumer Watchdog’s opposition to the proposed order. Still, Judge Illston asked a few pointed questions of the FTC’s and Google’s lawyers regarding the continued use of the data that Google collected.

"My preliminary view is to grant the request to approve the order [for the settlement between the FTC and Google]," she said before questioning the FTC’s counsel on why Google was allowed to keep the improperly collected data.

"The Commission considers Consumer Watchdog’s concern [that Google will continue to use its improperly collected data] to be unlikely, because old data is of negative value," the FTC’s counsel replied, saying that if a customer searched for a sofa six months ago and Google continued to use that information, the company would have to keep serving up ads for sofas, even though the ad might be irrelevant.

"I guess it’s not a risk writ large, but it's really annoying for a consumer to get ads for sofas on the screen,” the judge responded.

Google’s counsel then told the judge that the search giant’s policy is to anonymize IP addresses after nine months, rendering the usefulness of the information collected by the cookies negligible. "Concern about reassociation of data is neither realistic or feasible," Google’s lawyer said. "IP addresses are dynamic, they change over time. It would not be a practical or useful exercise for Google" to reassociate the information they collected, the counsel said.

The FTC did not fine Google for illegally collecting data, but rather for violating an earlier consent decree that the company had signed after Google was caught using consumer data to populate Google Buzz. In it, Google promised not to use consumer data outside of the company without the consumer's knowledge.

After the judge heard from both sides, Consumer Watchdog's lawyer Gary Reback discussed the advocacy group’s expectations with reporters outside the courtroom. Reback made his name in the '90s by launching the antitrust case against Microsoft, similarly filing an amicus brief questioning an FTC settlement with the software company. While it was unlikely that the judge would do anything but approve the FTC settlement with Google, Reback said he hoped she would add conditions to the approval, perhaps ordering the company to expunge the data it collected from Safari users, or at least asking it to admit guilt.

Even if she doesn’t do that, Reback said, he hoped Consumer Watchdog would challenge the FTC’s way of doing things. "The FTC seems to think that it can resolve Google’s antitrust issues simply by a consent decree," Reback said. "And we want to make it clear that that’s not a good procedure. It doesn’t seem to work very well, and it doesn’t seem to police Google very well."

Reback’s experience with Microsoft’s antitrust case is also clearly coming into play again with Google’s impending antitrust case with the FTC. "I wanted a courtroom where the government and Google were at the same table, hand in hand, and somebody is challenging them," Reback said. "Because when I did the Microsoft case, that was the turning point. When the government had to sit at the same table with Microsoft and defend them… I wanted the commissioners to feel the cosmetics if you will, the presence of the government defending Google’s conduct in litigating against a consumer protection agency. I wanted to know if they feel proud of that."

$3 Billion? Are you f*ing kidding me? That consumer group needs to be slapped up side their head just for even thinking it. There is no way that any kind of profit estimates or actual damages estimate could come up to $3 Billion.

Google is making "beg for forgiveness" company policy. They need to be punished severely so that it stops. It's great to take risks with bold new innovative ideas... but not when it's with customer data or personal privacy.

Consumer Watchdog and Reback are attention seekers and publicity whores. CW's finances are shrouded in mystery and Rebak is suing Google in another case, by giving them any sort of attention you almost give legitimacy to their publicity stunts.

If you go online and think you have any semblance of privacy you are simply a moron, here is a hammer, please hit yourself in the head with it.

Resistance is futile so why resist? Congratulations. You meet the requirements of a good sheep.

There's a difference between resignation and an understanding of reality. Non-government, non-corporate entities on the internet also continually skirt the fine line of privacy and criminality on a daily basis.

And this is why a consumer group should never be taken seriously. That they aren't even paying attention to what MS and other companies admitted they are doing - which is the exact same thing.

Consumer group should never be taken seriously?! Or there should be more number of consumer groups watching out for consumers from the likes of Google and "MS and other companies" that you are talking about? Is your bias for Google that great that you'd rather ignore the voice that is speaking for the consumers just because it points out the bad deeds of the company you are a fan of presumably?

Google is making "beg for forgiveness" company policy. They need to be punished severely so that it stops. It's great to take risks with bold new innovative ideas... but not when it's with customer data or personal privacy.

Nothing private or confidential ever changed place... It was a tracking cookie, not a CIA trojan. This has nothing to do with consumer protection, only litigation/lawsuits, and greed. Google did not even break the law... but their own settlement with the gov. with Buzz... There is nothing illegal for me to place a tracking cookie on a couple of webpages to see what people are doing.

Google is making "beg for forgiveness" company policy. They need to be punished severely so that it stops. It's great to take risks with bold new innovative ideas... but not when it's with customer data or personal privacy.

Nothing private or confidential ever changed place... It was a tracking cookie, not a CIA trojan. This has nothing to do with consumer protection, only litigation/lawsuits, and greed. Google did not even break the law... but their own settlement with the gov. with Buzz... There is nothing illegal for me to place a tracking cookie on a couple of webpages to see what people are doing.

Further, there are a lot of others doing the EXACT same thing, like Facebook and Microsoft, and the watchdogs aren't targeting them. I have no problem with consumer watchdogs. But they need to be fair about who they are attacking and the remedies they ask for.

Google is making "beg for forgiveness" company policy. They need to be punished severely so that it stops. It's great to take risks with bold new innovative ideas... but not when it's with customer data or personal privacy.

We are talking about browser cookies here, not credit card numbers and login credentials.

3bn dollars would be fair because it's supposed to be a punishment. A company earning 2.18 bn dollars last quarter won't see 22 million dollars as a punishment. Economically speaking, it might be seen as an encouragement to continue such behavior in the future.

This is not just about Google. It's about Facebook, Twitter and the lot of them. They all try to take apart privacy as we know it. And they all go about their business with the attitude: do it first, ask for permission later, apologize if necessary.The judical system in the US is supposed to have grievous fines for these situations, so companies think twice before pulling this crap. But it ain't used that way. It was only a few weeks ago that Apple got fined 60k for something. I don't remember what it was, only that 60k was bloody hell ridiculous. It's cynical to award fines like this to these mega-corporations.

If I share one f*cking song on BitTorrent, I can be fined with up to 125k dollars. That's twice my annual income - and I don't exactly have a NET income like them. How is that appropriate?

And this is why a consumer group should never be taken seriously. That they aren't even paying attention to what MS and other companies admitted they are doing - which is the exact same thing.

Consumer group should never be taken seriously?! Or there should be more number of consumer groups watching out for consumers from the likes of Google and "MS and other companies" that you are talking about? Is your bias for Google that great that you'd rather ignore the voice that is speaking for the consumers just because it points out the bad deeds of the company you are a fan of presumably?

They are doing harm to all consumer groups by demanding such outrageous fines for something that did little to no damage. From the sounds of it they didn't even know what kind of data had been collected or how it was even handled. In short, I think this "consumer group" is a joke.

Such a huge fine is just plain stupid. The watchdog group is not thinking ahead. If such a precedent were set, how many companies would leave the country? How many would never get started in the first place? Sure that is an extreme, but on the more lesser side of the scale, it would still stifle innovation. Nobody is allowed to make mistakes. Nobody is allowed to push boundaries. In the longer term, companies and talent move to other regions that are more friendly. If this company were not Google, would they still ask for a $3-8 billion dollar fine? Even in the worst case, Google is able to pay this amount, but there aren't that many companies that could say the same.

The watchdog group sounds a lot like the union in the recent Hostess bankruptcy to me. In my eyes this is a be careful what you wish for situation.

So if the information collected will be useless to Google in a few months time, why not just expunge it today? Either Google is not being honest about how useful the trend data they collected is, or it will make no difference to their operation. As such, there is no "punishment" for deleting all data collected inappropriately (it was collected inappropriately since they are paying $22M).

On a more serious note, I really don't understand Google's logic here, first they invented Chrome Incognito mode, then they went around and circumvent Safari's privacy feature with a dubious claim of "accidental breach"? O_oIs there any news/articles that really explored the possible reasons?

And this is why a consumer group should never be taken seriously. That they aren't even paying attention to what MS and other companies admitted they are doing - which is the exact same thing.

No they're not. My browser deletes all cookies by "MS and other companies".

Only google deliberately detected what browser I'm using and sent specific javascript to the browser that would trick mine into thinking it is a "first party" tracking cookie. They're not doing it anymore, it only happened for a very brief period of time.

They say they delete the data after 9 months. Why isn't the court ordering them to delete the data earlier just this once? This is one of very few blatant violations of user privacy google has ever made, it seems reasonable that they would delete the data they collected for a brief period of time.

I don't give a shit about fines, that's just a slap on the wrist. I want my data deleted, and I want it deleted months ago.

Google is making "beg for forgiveness" company policy. They need to be punished severely so that it stops. It's great to take risks with bold new innovative ideas... but not when it's with customer data or personal privacy.

BP just got hit with $4.5billion for dumping oil into a fairly substantial part of our oceans. How is this even close?

BPs fine was inadequate, they should have been fined 400Billion to a Trillion dollars. However that doesn't mean that Google should be fined 3Billion for a privacy invasion. Perhaps 300Million would be more fair.

And this is why a consumer group should never be taken seriously. That they aren't even paying attention to what MS and other companies admitted they are doing - which is the exact same thing.

Consumer group should never be taken seriously?! Or there should be more number of consumer groups watching out for consumers from the likes of Google and "MS and other companies" that you are talking about? Is your bias for Google that great that you'd rather ignore the voice that is speaking for the consumers just because it points out the bad deeds of the company you are a fan of presumably?

Not so much that we ignore Google's wrong doings, but more that many of these so called "Consumer Advocacy Groups" do absolutely nothing for consumers. Besides, what good is fining Google an extra $3 billion actually going to do? Nothing. You might significantly damage them financially for a short time, but besides lining the pockets of the lawyers, none of that money is ever going to make it's way back to the consumers that caused this case in the first place.

Yeah, the government is going to waste millions of dollars to try and fail to prove that Google did anything anti competitive other then being the best at search, how this makes sense in a time where Washington is practically bankrupt only makes sense to the groups of morons that hate Google for no valid reason. You know it's a waste when even the EU can't find some BS law or rule to fine Google on, and they are experts at that type of corporate shakedowns

Google is making "beg for forgiveness" company policy. They need to be punished severely so that it stops. It's great to take risks with bold new innovative ideas... but not when it's with customer data or personal privacy.

You thought you are getting email, search and docs with all that functionality for free??!!

Google apologists (and probably their lackeys as well) seem to be infesting the forums of the entire Internet lately. Trust me, Google doesn't need your help in its perpetual efforts to diminish privacy for average Americans.